The end of the year is approaching, again faster than one always seems to expect.

Ready, set… No?

At the beginning of the year I felt like I have the energy for a G. Rubin style year-long happiness project. In retrospective I think perhaps it was a bit too bold an assessment of my own abilities.

It’s not like I haven’t changed or figured out anything this year. I actually have learned a hell of a lot.

And I’d like to think I am braver, and happier, for that.

The road to a happier existence just hasn’t been at all what I planned it to be in the beginning of the year.

That’s a lesson learned right there dear people! I am not beating myself up for not following my plan through, as it was not serving me as well as I had hoped.

I have actually changed a lot of opinions and assumptions I had, when embarking on this journey. I think it’s all for the good though.

Chasing demons

Scary hooded figureBack when I had my relationship month, I remember picking something like “chasing your demons” as ONE item, amongst many others, to work on.

Quite ambitious of me.

At least I knew myself well enough to understand, that I needed to focus on that issue.

It’s just that I have since realized those demons are better hidden and much more powerful than I had imagined. I thought I had already done enough healing to take on this project full-on, but I guess it just wasn’t quite so.

With demons I mean my insecurities that tend to cause pretty much every problem that I seem to face in my life.

I’ve written before about how feeling your most negative feelings is needed in order to heal. But even I didn’t realize how well I actually had hidden my most crucial pains. But to hide your fears, insecurities, and pain doesn’t mean, they will not have an impact on your behavior. They make me act strange on a lot occasions. They are the reason I have trouble letting go of feelings and people, why I tend to overanalyze everything and try to be somehow more than I really am. They are at the core of my anger, that surfaces much more often than I would like.

Conquering demons

It probably shouldn’t have come as such a surprise, that therapy and happiness techniques sort of go hand in hand. But it kind of did. I’ve kept saying that my happiness project is not meant to heal me from my depression. And that still holds true.

A lot of the things, I have learned through focusing on what makes me happy, of course are good techniques to help with my depression.

But to really achieve a more lasting happiness, I have to slay this demon I carry inside me. Until then I’m afraid it will always have an effect on everything I choose to do, how I behave, where I want to be in life.

Just understanding this, and knowing I can now work on this issue, has made me that much happier again.